Lifeboat Foundation

Scientists have found a genetic mutation that cranks up someone’s pain tolerance to the superhuman level.

New research describes an Italian family with a rare gene that turns down their pain sensitivity and might offer clues in the development of pain treatments, particularly those who experience chronic pain. The six members of this family, who are from three different generations, have “a distinctive pain response that has not been identified in any other people,” University College London explained. The low-pain condition is called congenital analgesia and has been connected to a couple of other genetic mutations as well, but the studied family has a unique set of symptoms.

“The members of this family can burn themselves or experience … bone fractures without feeling any pain,” lead study author James Cox said in the university statement. “Their nerves are all there, they’re just not working how they should be. We’re working to gain a better understanding of exactly why they don’t feel much pain.”

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Age is a leading risk factor for a number of conditions such as heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease among others, such conditions make a real need for development of anti-aging therapies urgent. Salk Institute researchers may have developed a new gene therapy to help decelerate the aging process, as published in the journal Nature Medicine.

CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing therapy has been shown by the Salk Institute team to suppress the accelerated aging observed in mice with Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria syndrome; and provided insight into the molecular pathways involved in accelerated aging, and how to reduce toxic proteins via gene therapy.

Having an early onset and fast progression progeria is a severe form of degenerative disorder caused by LMNA gene mutations; signs of accelerated aging include DNA damage, cardiac dysfunction, and dramatically shortened lifespan. LMNA genes produce lamin A and lamin C inside a cell, progeria shifts production of lamin A to progerin which is a toxic shortened form of lamin A that accumulates with age and becomes exacerbated with the condition.

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Doctors in London have used sound waves to successfully operate deep inside the brain.

They treated a man from Cornwall who suffered from uncontrollable tremors in his right hand.

The ultrasound machine Exablate Neuro, is produced by Insightec, a technology firm based in Israel. Their graphic explains how it works.

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ENIGMA consortium’s probe of many brain disorders finds common structural changes in diverse kinds of epilepsy.

Taiga Motors is one of the rare companies working to bring to market an all-electric snowmobile, which is actually a segment of transportation that desperately needs cleaner solutions.

The startup is unveiling today its new lineup of electric snowmobiles with some impressive specs.

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Andrew Jaffe probes Carlo Rovelli’s study arguing that physics deconstructs our sense of time.

As mysterious as the Italian scientist for which it is named, the Majorana particle is one of the most compelling quests in physics.

Its fame stems from its strange properties—it is the only particle that is its own antiparticle—and from its potential to be harnessed for future quantum computing.

In recent years, a handful of groups including a team at Princeton have reported finding the Majorana in various materials, but the challenge is how to manipulate it for quantum computation.

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Outgunned

The news comes after the spread of a video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that had been tampered with to make her appear drunk. Earlier this month, the video mysteriously disappeared from Facebook.

Adam Schiff (D-CA), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Thursday, “I don’t think we’re well prepared at all. And I don’t think the public is aware of what’s coming. There’s no end to the pernicious abuse of this technology.”

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UMBC’s Hua Lu, professor of biological sciences, and colleagues have found new genetic links between a plant’s circadian rhythm (essentially, an internal clock) and its ability to fend off diseases and pests. The findings were 10 years in the making and published in Nature Communications this week. The results could eventually lead to plants that are more resistant to disease-causing pathogens and better treatment for human diseases.

“It’s quite cool,” Lu says, “because, in both plants and animals, people are beginning to study the crosstalk between the circadian clock and the immunity system.”